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THE PHILOSOPHER'S SOLU- 
TION of the DEVIL PROBLEM 

SHOWING 

WHO HE IS AND WHAT HE IS, 
WHERE HE COMES FROM 

AND 

HOW THERE CAME TO BE A DEVIL. 



ILLUSTRATED- 



!.-:... ! ,1. - ? 



By H. G. LYONS, a Farmer, 
of Berryton, Kansas. 



Copyrighted 1904 by Horace G. Lyons* 
THE FARMERS ADVOCATE PRINT 

TOPEKA, KANSAS. 



Two Copies Received 

APR 26 1904 

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THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TWO SPJR1TS THAT RULE LIFE: 



PREFACE. 

It is a well known fact, that very many of our modern theo- 
logians and Bible teachers, are much more liberal in their views 
of this subject than men of their grade a few decades back, buc 
this fact cannot for a momput be considered in the solution of 
this problem beyond its personal worth, for the interests of the 
whole human race are involved in it as a fact of life and not 
a speculation of theology. 

Hence it n my purpose to come as near solving it for all 
time, and all people, as George Stephenson did in solving the 
steam problem when lie built his first locomotive. Others have 
improved on his machine in mechanical detail, but the great fact 
of steam power remains unchanged. 

And so with the solution of this problem. Others may im- 
prove in their use of language that brings it out, butt the central 
fact of the problem will remain unchanged, and in due time wi 1 ! 
be as clear to every schoolboy as the problem of steam. 

It must be remembered that this solution deals only with 
man's presence or practical life on this earth that we are* all 
compelled to face, and that in our encounter, so much of the un- 
pleasant, disagreeable, disgusting and devilish is met, that we are 
wont to cry out, "Why did God ever make a devil, or destroyer? 
Why does He permit such things to be done? Why didn't he, when 
He created man, if His power is unlimited, make him so thai 
such things would be impossible, etc., etc.?" Thus man ques- 
tions God's prerogatives, forgetting that all of this comes within 
a system that He is the author of for some pupose, and that 
while his power is absolutely unlimited, He is in the very nature 
of things compelled to limit himself to acting within that sys- 
tem so far as the system is concerned. At the same time He 



could abolish the system if he saw fit. Hence His power is not 
only unlimited, but His actions consistent. 

My purpose, therefore, in the solution of this problem, is to 
show from the facts and logical deductions of the Bible's teach- 
ings and experience, that man, upon his own responsibility as 
a free moral agent, has himself brought about the very conditions 
of which he complains, hence has no right to complain, besides, 
the same God has put intelligence with in his reach so that 
through it he can change them if he will. Hence bis refusal to 
do so proves his guilt. 

INTRODUCTION. 



The. greatest difficulty to be encountered in making clear to 
the average mind a rational solution of this problem is first a 
lack of knowledge, and second the prejudice of wrong education 
resulting therefrom, for it is absolutely impossible to reason 
with people whose minds are loaded with prejudice. Henca the 
necessity for laying down the three following fundamental facts 
that must govern everything that may or can be said on this 
subject. 

First. Man developed on this earth before any devil or 
destroyer was ever known or . heard of, taking the Bible as 
the source of information. 

Second. Every possibility of man that ever has existed, 
exists in present life today, for life is and ever has been but the 
repetition of life hence present life furnishes the data for the 
solution of this problem, independent of Eden. 

Third, But two spirits rule life as the . q? egram shows, and 
every known intelligence is of one or the other; hence there 
can be no independent third party. Then the moment that 
either of these facts are lost sight of, intelligent advancement 
in the solution or understanding of this problem ceases, remem- 
bering that this earth is the theater of action. 



PART FIRST. 



It would be hard to tell the extent to which this subject has 
Occupied the minds of people of past ages and all classes; and 
still harder to find any one that had nc ideas of such a 
personality; and I may safely say, harder still to find two per- 
sons who hold exactly the same views in regard to him. 

This is the Devil problem as it stands today, notwithstanding 
the teachings of Scripture, and the honor paid him by the thou- 
sands who have preached about him, and the myriads of writeups 
of eminent scholars. 

But by neither of the latter, to my knowledge, has it ever 
been presented or discussed from the philosophical side of life, 
while the Scriptures knoAv no other. Hence it is from its philo- 
sophical side that I wish to discuss it. 

But right here at the outset I want to firmly impress this 
fact upon the minds of my readers, that every allusion made to 
the Devil, or destroyer, in Scripture is in immediate connection 
with, or in some way relates to, man, and then only as a de<- 
stroyer, but never as a benefactor. This shows him to be man's 
companion and destroyer and not God's. 

WHO AND WHAT HE IS. 

These facts must not be lost sight of, for right here is 
where our preachers and writers have failed, for they have taken 
for granted that the Devil is an omnipresent personality inde- 
pendent of man, while the Scriptures radiate from man, or life, 
without which no Scriptures would have been given, and of 
course no Devil known. Hence man first. 

But since' we are here rational beings, and Devils Or de- 
stroyers are here as well, if no Scripture had ever been given, 
we would know that somewhere there must exist an intelligence 

Note.— The Word Devil is purely a New Testament name for the 
destroyer of mankind. 



14 THE SOLUTION OP THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 

destroyers, that are not taken into account at all, for it is 
but a very, very small per cent of the children that do not 
need, or get, punished for wrong doing long before the age of 
accountability only to parents is reached. 

Now, -where did all of these irresponsible destroyers come 
from, for they are here, and we all know it, and some children 
act as though they had a dozen of them — and it is no, fault of 
theirs either, for they are not accountable. 

This is no speculation of theology, but a fact of present 
life, with which we are ail familiar. Now where did all of 
these irresponsible destroyers come from, I again )aisk, for 
there are more or less of them provided for every child? Again 
I ask, where did they come from, and I press the question, and 
our religionists must answer it, and that, too, without the in- 
consistency of accusing the Creator of running a shop on the 
sly — for their manufacture — for it was impossible for him to 
create man any other than He did; for when God had com- 
pleted the works of creation He pronounced everything "very 
good," as above stated. This excludes notning but the false 
teaching of our religionists, and others, and this retires them 
from the field. 

THE PHILOSOPHER 

will now proceed with his answer to the above question. 

At this time God had withdrawn Himself from earth, so 
to speak, and left it in the possession of man as its sovereign, 
He only retaining the right to rule in the mind Of man as man's 
teacher. While man, God's heritage, could go no farther than to 
rule over the material world in harmony with laws that were a 
part of what God had created, and that man can not change. 
And we know, too, by experience, that anything done in har- 
mony with those laws means life, growth and success, or good, 
while anything undertaken or done that is not in harmony with 
those laws means failure, decay and death, or evil; and thrs 



THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. T5 

is the origin of good and evil, with every man so far as man 
is conc?rned, individually. 

We have learned of these things after thousands of years 
of experience, while our first parents knew nothing of them, 
never having had any opportunity to learn. 

Now let us go back to the garden where we left our 
grandparents in consultation over the outlook for the future, 
and see how they are getting on. 

But remember, we must approach it in the light of Christ's 
precept, "By their fruits ye shall know them," else what have 
we learned of the destroyer's work that begun there, by our 
thousands of years of experience? The world is supposed to 
advance in intelligence. 

As the story is told in Genesis, and numerous allusions are 
made in Scrirtures to the same destroying power, under a 
variety of names, the inference that our religionists have drawn 
and taught as cardinal doctrine, is. tint there is a personal 
devil or destroyer, independent cf men, th° same as a persona" 
G-od, one over against the other. He,nce the. solution cf this 
probem hinges right here. 

Either man developed in the destroyer, or the destroyer 
developed in man, for the two go together and make one of 
the two spirits that rule life, the good and the evil, as we see 
by the diagram. If man developed in the destroyer the de- 
stroyer was his creator, or he was created bad. butt on the 
other hand if the destroyer developed in man, then man de- 
veloped on the earth first and good, for Cod was his creator 
which we all admit. And here I want to ask a question, What 
would become of the evil spirits that are in and rule men 
today, if every man should, tomorrow, become like Christ? One 
thing is certain, selfishness, the spring of all evil, would cease to 
exist, and man is the only selfish being known on this earth. 

Then what the religionist sees as a literal serpent, or snake, 
one of Adam's animals, stealthily approaching its occupants, V e 



4 THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 

This being true, the general law of reproduction of animate 
and inanimate nature changes nothing; like begets like. It 
simply reproduces or creates a duplicate of what existed before it 
through a law attached to the original. Then it was as easy 
to create the original as the law that created the duplicate; con- 
sequently everything stands in the same relation to the Creator 
when it comes into the world, or being, whether ten minutes or 
ten thousand years apart. Then it logically follows that every 
child born into the world stands in exactly the same relation to 
the Creator that Adam' — or first man — did when created; hence, 
what is true of Adam is true of the child. Then every child is 
simply Adam duplicated through a law; so everything that per- 
tained to Adam is right here a living present in every child. Now 
we know wheVe we are in this problem. 

Adam had nothing to do with his appearing on the scene. 
He found himself here in response to a fiat of his Creator. 
A child has nothing whatever to do with its coming into the 
world, for it comes here in response to a fixed law of the 
same Creator. Then at the beginning of every life sin can have 
nothing to do with it. If it has, then God must be the sinner, 
for sin is the act of the responsible individual, physically or 
mentally, and no law of herdity can change this beginning. 
This certainly does away with the original sin doctrine or our 
religionists. 

The next thing to be considered is the possibilities of the 
child, although it knows absolutely nothing when it awakes to 
consciousness. 

In its anatomy there is certainly design of a marvelous nature. 
Very soon intellect develops, for it notices things. Then follows 
discrimination, for it will shrink from a stranger, and a year 
usually finds it on its feet and beginning to talk. 

With these, and the balance of human developments, we are 
all familiar, for they are facts of present life, which shows that 
we were designed by our Creator for a life of activity; hence not 






THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 



to blame for this feature of our personality. At the same time 
this ability developed into intelligence and activity, proves us to 
be created in the image and likeness of our Creator for some pur- 
pose, for He is intelligent and active with a purpose. 

Then the next thing to be considered is the channels into 
which this intelligence and energy is to be directed. 

As I have above said, we come into the world with no 
knowledge, because it was impossible for God to create ufe with 
knowledge, for if He could have created us with any knowledge 
at all, He could have created us with all knowledge — then we 
would have been Gods and not men — but this was impossible, 
without destroying his system, so the nearest He could reach that 
condition was to create man with the one instinct, self-preserva- 
tion, like the other animals, and with ability to couple knowledge 
to that instinct, which enabled him to rise above them. Then the 
ability to learn indefinitely, and wisdom to utilize what he learned, 
was all He could give to man, and this He did. But what we 
learn is by experience through the senses, for absolute knowl- 
edge can be gained in no other way, unless there is a sixth sense. 

We now have the conditions under which all rational life 
comes into the world, and the reasons for them. At the same 
time -we know that the inherent energy that develops in the 
child compels it to move forward in some direction, and in 
its innocence and ignorance it would as soon pick up a poisonous 
serpent as a stick, or put a lump of strychnine in its mouth as a 
piece of candy. The mother's warning of danger cuts no figure 
with the child, for it, as yet, knows no danger, though the child 
of very bright parents. 

Now who is responsible for this condition of things? Thai 
the child certainly is not we all admit, for it knows no better. 

Then if the mother is held responsible for not keeping the 
serpent, and the strychnine, and the cigarette, and the whisky, 
and the penitentiary, and the gallows, hence dishonored grave, 
out of the child's way — for one follows the other as surely as 



6 THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 

death follows life, and sometimes very close to the age of re- 
sponsibility, if not before — what is to be said of the one who 
created these things, or puts them in the child's way? Or, is 
this running things into an outside affair, and if so, jwhere does 
the inside affair stop, and the outside begin? This, you see, is 
getting into deep water, and the only way out that I can see 
is to recognize God's right to create man as He saw best, which 
He says He did when He pronounced everything "very good," 
and also, that His primary design was that man should he his 
brother's keeper and not killer, like Cain, whom he cursed and 
branded for his crime. 

For if He knew how to create this Universe, and this mar- 
velous piece of machinery we call man, He certainly knew what 
was best for ignorant man in order to save him from destruction 
by having his own way. So we can do no better than to accept 
what God has done as for the best, and let Him dictate and 
we follow. 

Then all of the functions that have developed in man were 
put there for the purpose of helping him to reach the highest 
plane of his possibilities in God-likeness, through obedience to 
His requirements, and not the lowest through perversion or 
disobedience. 

MAN'S EDEN HOME. 

Man's Eden home is pointed out in Scripture as some spot 
on our earth — as yet unknown, and probably always will 
be : — where our first parents set up housekeeping. This must be 
true, for we, their children, are here on earth today, keeping 
house. But while they came there as nude as children when born 
here, and were designed for one another's companionship for 
life, there was no more wrong in their living together as 
husband and wife then, than for their children now. At the sam>e 
time they were crammed full, so to speak, of the possibilities their 
children have developed since. 

Just how long Adam was alone before his wife put in her 



THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 7 

appearance, or how long their honeymoon lasted, after, we are 
not told; or how long they were under instruction in agriculture 
and horticulture and stock raising or dressing the garden, etc., 
the records fail to show. But they do show that they were there 
some length of time without sin, and we will do well to give 
them all the latitude possible for acquiring a useful -education, 
for they had a competent teacher. In fact, the more they 
learned, the better they were prepared to assume the responsibil- 
ities of peopling a world and ruling it as earth's sovereigns. 

But as yet they knew nothing of wrong, for no wrong was 
there, because God was still in possession and in full control. 

Now, however, the time had come for them, as it comes to 
everyone today, when they must assume responsibility whether 
they know it all or not, so they were shown over their little 
world and it was all turned over into their hands, except the 
one reserve, the tree of knowledge of good and 'evil, or in 
other words, the line was drawn for the first time, between 
good and evil, or right and wrong, ignorance and intelligence 
as well; and this it was absolutely necessary for God to do, or 
He would have been directly responsible for man's wrong acts, 
that He knew could result from his lack of knowledge, while 
they knew nothing about it, like children now. He knew every- 
thing. They had everything to learn. Hence God's action was 
simply throwing a safeguard around his children, for He was re- 
sponsible for their presence here, yet held them amenable for 
their conduct, the same as parents. At the same time the death 
penalty had to be attached to wrong or evil doing as a safeguard to 
His holy abode, for the wrong doer would separate himself from 
his God by his act, from no matter what cause, and no provision 
had been made for sinning man to recover his first standing with 
his Creator, if lost. 

To illustrate: Suppose a railroad accident should occur at 
a certain place, and later it should transpire that every provision 
had been made at that place to receive and care for the killed 



8 THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 

and wounded; such an act would send the last one of those re- 
sponsible to the gallows, or ought to. Yet this is exactly the 
position God would have been in if He had made any provision 
for man's recovery before he fell. Hence the death penalty had 
to stand. Besides, there was no necessity for their doing wrong, 
for God was right there then in person to counsel with at every 
step, just as He is right here now in His written word for their 
children to counsel with today. 

But up until this time no devil as a personality is even 
hinted at, so if he existed at all, God must have had him hid 
away somewhere out of sight, for He is the creator of all things. 

We have now reached the Eden home of our first parents, 
and like every new home since, we see the husband and wife 
in consultation over the outlook for the future, and in perfect 
harmony with their Creator. They the sovereigns of this world, 
He only their Sovereign; they ruling over mater, including the 
entire animal kingdom, snakes and all; He ruling over their 
minds. This shows their respective spheres of activity. Man 
in the physical world. GOD IN THE MIND OR SPIRITUAL 
WORLD. 

From the foregoing, and from the rest of the Scripture that 
we accept as authority, nothing can be more emphatic than the 
fact that no wrong, impurity, or evil, and especially in a per- 
sonality, can dwell in peace and harmony with God. Then how 
could He, the Allwise Creator, who created all things, have had 
hid away there in that garden, or near by, a being of His own 
creating, that He knew combined in himself all of the destroying 
elements of selfishness that have since been used in making 
prey of the whole human race — and an omni-present being at 
that, for he is carrying on his work of destruction all over the 
world at the present time—to turn loose upon those ignorant and 
innocent people, when He knew what must result, through their 
ignorance, and still maintain His integrity, where the incon- 



THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 9 

sistency is so exceedingly glaring to free moral agents who think 
for themselves. 

Yet, notwithstanding, al] of this, ouir great divines and re- 
ligious leaders have, since Christ left the world, been pointing 
back to this personal devil, or serpent, who came from under 
Adam's jurisdiction — thus relieving God of responsibility — as the 
direct agent in breaking up our first parents' home in the garden, 
and holding them responsible by their action, for entailing upon 
the race that tendency of life that has produced present 
moral conditions, when all that they did was simply to have 
their own way, because they thought their's was best, which by 
experience they learned to be wrong or evil, but too late — the 
experience of everybody — for they found themselves on the wong 
side of the line, the side of death. Expulsion followed, as a 
matter of course, for wrong could not dwell in harmony with 
right then, any more than now. Besides they had lost their 
teacher so what they learned must be by experience. Thorns and 
thistles ever since. 

If this teaching of our divines and Bible students, which 
is accepted by the masses of outr religionists, is the true and 
only way to account for the downfall of our first parents, then 
here is where this destroyer or devil came from, and like all other 
created things, direct from the hands of his Creator. And if 
there were only one destroyed, he must have been endowed with 
omnipresent power — for see the homes he is breaking up today — 
As one feature of his work in this country, divorces from various 
causes are becoming almost as numerous as marriages, and if kept 
up it will be wise for contracting parties to get their divorce at 
the sarL'e time they get their license to marry, and save trouble. 
This, I admit, is running the sublime into the ridiculous, bu. 
I see no better way than to show up the absurdity of what our 
great divines are preaching to us as cardinal doctrine, in order 
to reach a rational solution of this problem. And further, if 
Ihe one devil theory is not correct, but instead, there are le* 



10 THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 

gions, then God is running a factory that is turning them 
out at a rate parallel with the increase of the population, and 
faster, for some have as many as seven, and this i3 the only 
deduction to be drawn from their reasoning, for there is no 
known plan for the propogation of devils. 

At the same time, reader, I hold it as a cardinal principle 
that no one has a right to disturb what is, unless he provides 
something better. 

But whether I succeed or not, I have tried to lay a solid 
foundation to build upon, and in the above, though briefly, 
I have tried to give a fair and impartial showing of the situa- 
tion and our religionists' solution of this problem; and I give 
them credit for the strictest honesty of purpose in their teaching - . 

However, the age has developed a lar^e ciass of philosophical 
thinkers who are not satisfied v/ith this solution So now 
let us see what can be done for them, for they see only the 
two spirits that rule life, and, as having nothing in common, 
for with them, wrong or evil can never rise above the dust and 
will forever be bruising the heel of good or right, while right ill 
turn will bruise the head of wrong as long as wrong exists. 

This is the way the philosopher sees things. 



PART SECOND. 



Now, reader, step with me for a moment into one of our 
modern printing offices, and take a look at one of their ex- 
ceedingly complicated linotype machines. The object of the 
inventor was to do away with the majority of journeymen 
typesetters by the use of machinery, and there before you is 
the perfected result of his work; one man doing the work 
of five. 

Now it matters not whether the inventor had every !>iece of 
that machine in his mind at the start, as you see it now, 
or only a sort of outline that required years of patient study 
and toil in making, and then discarding pieces because wrong. 
But from start to finish, any piece not adapted to every other 
piece, hence wrong, allowed in its makciro would have suc- 
cessfully defeated his scheme. 

But when completed he could well say that piece of ma- 
chinery, in the day that anything gets out of place, or wrong, 
you shall surely die, or, in other words, cease to be used as 
designed, until the' wrong is made right. 

And this is as true of the man as of the machine And 
whatever may be the ultimate design of the Oeator beyond this 
world, His primary design while here on earth was, that man 
should not be his brother's Killer, but keeper. Cain's expe- 
rience for example. 

Then the terms good and evU, or right and wrong, point 
out two possible conditio as in life of the same being, that 
are as opposite, as up and down, and man through his intelli- 
gence is to decide his course. Right, or good, means life and 
growth, or usefulness and success; while wrong or evil, means 
death and decay, or failure and destruction; and Cod stands at 



12 THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 

the head as, the Creator of all things, but, as independent of His 
work, as the man is independent of the machine. 

Then in harmony with His laws, the vegetable and animal 
kingdom comes into being year after year, grow to a certain 
point, reproduce themselves, then cease to grow, or die, and 
become the subjects of the law of disintegration, or decay, that 
carries them back to earth again, ready to come forth in any 
needed form. And the physical man is subject to the same law. 
There can be nothing wrong in this arrangement of things 
for suppose there had been no law of disintegration or decay 
created or made possible, but everything that had life, grew, and 
forever remained as it was when it ceased to grow, or died, 
what would have been the condition of the earth today? Hence 
it is readily seen, that decay must necessarily follow growth, or 
our earth would be uninhabitable. 

Then as yet we find nothing wrong with any of God's 
works more than the machine. At the same time, here are pres- 
ent moral conditions that must be accounted for, and if there 
is nothing wrong in them, then there is no such thing as 
wrong. Man is guiltless, and the Bible is a fake. 

But no one will submit to this conclusion, for all know that 
the wickedness resulting in crime that is destroying humanity, 
Cain-like, is evidence that we are still largely our brother's 
killers instead of keepers; at the same time our religionist/ 
are teaching us that the devil is to blame for it all, and take you 
right back to the garden and point you to that literal old 
serpent which is the devil and satan, and sigh, "Oh, if our 
first parents had but resisted the tempter how much the world 
would have been saved." Thus they make Eden the dumping 
ground for the world's wickedness. 

It is a very convenient arrangement for our Reverends, I 
admit, and I don't know that they can be blamed, for they are 
only men, and the world generally is ready for a "soft snap," if 
a slang phrase may be allowed. 



THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 13 

Now recall the fact that at the outset of this article I 
said that every mention 01 tae devil under the variouls names 
was in some way connected with man, and in every instance 
as a destroyer and never thought of as anything else, and that 
he came upon the scene after man appeared; that he was the 
companion of man, and man's destroyer, and later gave the re- 
ligionists' explanation of his origin, which is not satisfactory 
to the philosophical thinker. 

Hence the religious world has a light to demand that the 
philosopher make a better showing as to his origin or accept 
theirs. So they ask this straight question: 

"WHERE DOES THE DEVIL COME FROM?" 

In answering this question the philosopher wishes to do so 
partly by asking another. Where does that something we call 
disintegration, or decay, come from, that dissolves and carries 
back to mother earth all vegetable and aninml matter that 
she gives birth to, physical man included? 

We all know that this destroying element in the very nature 
of things develops in the thing itself — then why not call it 
devil — and were it not so the earth would be the most deso- 
late looking place imaginable. 

Then all we have left of man is this invisible something* 
we call mind, that we know Is absolutely absent or undeveloped 
in every child when it comes into the world — and in the idiot 
remains absent — and its only instinct is self-preservation. Fol- 
lowing this is development of mind and possibilities, but up 
to a certain point of development, it is not held responsible 
by its creator for its acts, but only by responsible man; and 
this fact we know as a part of life. Then there is no devil 
but man in sight yet, and we have passed no place where he 
could get in his appearance — and at the age of accountability 
a child may have learned from him a great many evil things, too. 
Then if there are any other devils in the field, in the Creator's 
plan is included an infinite number of irresponsible devils, or 



2 THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 

and power that designed and wrought out the works of what we 
call nature, which we see in and about us — for it is impossible to 
conceive of design without a designer behind it. And we know, 
too, tnat their production is beyond the possibilities of man, 
for he can only ulse what another has put into his hands, and 
then only in harmony with fixed laws. Then wby have we net 
a right to know from whence comes this power that is continually 
turning the world upside down and bears the various na*ies 
that Scripture gives it. 

The name we give the invisible being whom we accept as 
the author or creator of all things — emphasize strongly the word 
all — whether visible or invisible, is God. 

And if this same God had not communicated with man in some 
tangible manner, stocks and stones, and creatures of his own 
imagination woiud still be doing duty as God with us, as in some 
countries today, for man stands in awe conscious of this unseen 
power. 

As the Bible claims to be this communication, and at the 
same time proves itself true to life, the intelligent world, that 
judges by fruits, accepts it as sifch, and from it we learn that 
nothing is impossible with God. But this can only be true while 
its teachings are applied to our invisible life and its possibilities — 
that constitutes the real man — where it belongs. The moment we 
step outside of that we meet with a contradiction; for instance, 
it is impossible for God to create >a four-year-old horse. He 
might speak the horse into being in an instant as easily as bring 
it here in four years through the law, as He does, but the years 
would be lacking. 

Then it is true, too, that He could not create another God 
like Himself, so that there would be two Gods exactly alike in 
every respect. 

But hunting up the impossibilities of God is a waste of 
time, for in our lifetime we will not learn half enough of what 
he can do through us. 



THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 3 

1 have thrown these thoughts in here in order to quicken 
your mind and more thoroughly arrest your attention, and thus 
set you to thinking, for I want you to think and reason for 
yourself, and know for yourself, and not depend upon what I 
say, for my saying is no better than yours unless I provide a 
way for you! to know the same as I do, for the facts of life 
are to be shared alike by all. We are discussing life and not 
religion. 

The fact, then, that every allusion the Bible makes to Devils 
under the various names of Satan, Dragon, Serpent. Adversary, 
Destroyer, etc., etc., is in connection with man, AS THE PRIN- 
CIPAL, is evidence that man developed on this earth first; hence 
it will be in order for us to inquire somewhat into his beginning, 
first. 

MAN FIRST, THEN DESTROYER. 

Some of our scientists tell us that man is the product of 
evolution. 

To me, that means, that they have it all fixed up in their 
brains so they can see him away back yonder a million years, 
more or less, starting out as a sort of microbe they call proto- 
plasm, but fail utterly to explain its origin; then they evolve it, 
and evolve it, and continue to evolve it up throutgh various mem- 
bers of the animal kingdom, utntil they reach the "missing link." 
and there they have to stop; and that is just where I begin, for 
their two failures leaves me free to accept the Bible statement 
as consistent, reasoning from a practical standpoint, for it was 
as easy to create a man, as a protoplasm or a beast. 

As far back as can be learned from our records, the human 
animal has been the same from the beginning of the race. So 
man's origin must come under the same law as all other created 
things — even in cell life — both animate or inanimate, so far as ma- 
teriality is concerned, and man being created a rational being, 
hence in this sense in the image and likeness of his creator, in 
no sense releases him from that law. 



16 THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 

philosopher sees as a selfish thought coming into the mind of 
the woman, suggested by her environments and lack, cr nesd. 
of knowledge. 

In 'the colloquoy that ensues between the religionist ser- 
pent and the woman, the philosopher sees that thouight re- 
volving in her mind as we all revolve thoughts until we reach 
a decision which will be in accord with our knowledge and in- 
terests. If we decide wrong, we must accept the inevitable i s 
this •scene ended, and as all wrong ends. 

It was in this manner that Cain decided to become his 
brother's killer, and this is in keeping with the early tempta- 
tion and 'subsequent teaching of the world's greatest Teacher, 
for he said, "For from within, out of the hearts of men, pre- 
ceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, cov- 
etousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blas- 
phemy, pride, foolishness; AH these things come from within 
defile a man." Mark 7:20-2. 

No one can prevent thoughts from coming into the mind 
neither can they do any harm only as they are harbored by 
the consent of the will, and when the will as far as possible 
determines to execute an evil thought, that moment the person 
becomes transformed into a destroyer; and this is where all 
the devil that the Bible teaches us about comes from. This 
is the philosopher's solution of this problem. At the same 
time it relieves the Creator from the charge of inconsistency 
of action, by creating devils. 

Now couple to this a clear knowledge of the natural laws 
that govern the relation that good bears to evil in life, or natural 
laws in the spiritual world, or laws of association, and every 
allusion made to the destroyer of man in Scripture will per- 
fectly harmonize this solution, while nothing but religious an- 
archy can ever exist so long as people are satisfied with a 
mere belief of Scripture, without the knowledge of life that 
it imparts. 



THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 17 

But our religionists are not quite satisfied, for while they 
hear the trial and sentence of their culprits of the garden, they 
see the literal old serpent as the cause crawling around on the 
ground to eat dust all his life, and they can't get their eyes off 
from him — besides it's so convenient to have it so. I have not 
necessarily lingered at the garden in the solution of this problem 
for present life furnishes the data for its solution, but because it 
would be useless to leave there until the last clinch was out that 
holds our religionists bound to that enchanter spot, so that in 
time they may rise above the prejudice of early education and 
see, and realize that what transpired there is the experience of 
every life, and that God has so ordered things that evil and wrong 
can never rise above the dust and dirt of earth, but will forever 
be bruising the heel of good and right, and that right, in turn, 
will forever continue to bruise the head of wrong, or evil, until 
man has learned to be his brother's keeper instead of killed, and 
right here on this earth, too. Then the world will have the moral 
conditions that Christianity was designed to bring it. 

This solution of the devil problem is satisfactory to the 
philosopher, because in this solution he sees wisdom and con- 
sistency in all of God's dealings with the children of men, for 
all of the laws that govern life in its relation to life work 
harmoniously, but through man's free moral agency or sovereignty 
over earth, is where the trouble has come in, for he has as- 
sumed too much, like Cain, who allowed himself to become his 
brother's destroyer. Saul of Tarsus also, was a destroyer, like 
Cain, "for he went about breathing out threatenings and 
slaughter against the brethren," because they didn't believe as 
he did, and religionists who want people to believe as they 
do, are like Saul, destroyers, because they want to load people 
with prejudice, thereby robbing them of their selfhood. With man 
his brother's keeper, everything is in its place, and like the ma- 
chine ruins smoothly as God designed it. Then it can only be kept 
there through intelligence; and this is the great need of the 



18 THE SOLUTION OP THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 

world; especially in regard to this subject, for overlooking the 
fact that the devil, or destroyer, develops or originates in man, ?s 
decay develops or originates in the plant or animal, has given to 
the world its present irrational ideas of its destroyer, for selfi?h 
man is the only personal destroyer or devil of which we have any 
knowledge. 

With a word of advice from the philosopher to our great 
eclesiastics, divines and lesser lights who have filled the world 
with their false teachings, and I will draw this to a close. 

Never again look beyond your pews for the destroyers that 
are doing the dirt of the world today, for they are there, and 
graded down from the multi-millionaires to the petty thief, 
and lower; and the tide will never, never turn, until these 
people are converted from wrong to right, or like Judas, go 
to their own place. The process may have to begin with the 
preacher, or the deacon, but no matter, Christ's church must 
be a unit on the side of right, bruising the head of the serpent 
wrong, and releasing his victims from his grasp, or he will 
have them by the heel dragging them down to his level, to eat 
dust with him; for one or the other of these spirits is ruling 
in every community mind and heart today, or there is war. 
HOW THERE CAME TO BE A DEVIL. 

If any readers have failed to get a clear idea of how theve 
came to be a devil, the only way that I can be of further service is 
to suggest a plan by which they can know it by their own 
experience. 

When anything crosses our pathway that makes us angry, 
or aroutees any of the element shown in the diagram that springs 
from selfishness, a whole train of thoughts will be set in mo- 
tion that will be sure to more or less change our countenances, 
if not our whole exterior. Then step up before the looking- 
glass and there we are face to face with the very fellow, our- 
self; thus we can know by our own personal experience all there 
is to be known about it. 



THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 19 

It is a long ladder that reach" z from our primitive ignorance 
to that plane of intelligence whe-^ we will know of our possi- 
bilities what the world's greatest Teacher knows of them. 
and many a hard knock and tumble will be experienced in our 
effort to climb it. But it is only those who gain intelligence 
by their experience that will ever reach the goal. Believing 
ourselves there doesn't get us there. 

Too much stress can not be laid upon the fact that \here 
is but one ladder between ignorance and knowledge or darkness 
and light; that evil and good, or wrong and right are results. 
Then we only ascend it as we intelligently, but firmly, plant 
our feet on the destroying elements shown in the diagram that 
develop from thoughts suggested by developing functions or' 
our persontliay, or environments, for these are the rounds of 
the ladder up which we must all climb in obedience to God's 
requirements or forever remain in the dust with the saaXe at 
the bottom, for ignorance, wrong or evil, can never rise abov^ 
the dirt. Then we only rise as we intelligently leave them. "No 
man can serve two masters." 

Then everything that Christianity asks the world to beliove 
is that its Author has provided a ladder that is safe to climb. 
"He that climbeth up some other way the «same is a thief and 
a robber"; thus He affirms. 

Then what of the hundreds uipon hundreds of ladders that 
men have built from a thought suggested by selfishnrss or en- 
vironments, or both exactly as was the case with the first set- 
tlers of our earth, and as has been the case with every advanced 
step that man has made since, either good or bad. Indeed every 
act of life is the result of a thought, and without which man 
would be nothing. Then let me repeat. When an evil though": 
vitalizes in the mind, and the will determines to execute it, that 
moment the person becomes a destroyer or devil, and tbis is 
where all the devils that this world has ever known have come 
from, as above stated. An evil thought develops in the mind 
and becomes its destroyer, as decay develops in vegetable or 
animal matter that destroys them. "Peter said to Ananias — Why 
hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart — and he fell down 
and gave up the ghost." Acts, 5, 4-6. 

When will intelligence be allowed to come to the rescue, 
and open the eyes of the blind climbers of these false ladders, 
and all others, that they may be saved from the catastrophe 
caused by the collapse that must sooner or later overtake wrong 



APR 26 1904 



20 THE SOLUTION OF THE DEVIL PROBLEM. 

and the deceived people awake only to find themselves with 
the snakes in the dirt when they thought they were climbing 
to heaven, which proved to be of their own making. 

Hence it is perfectly clear that if the light or knowledge, 
that Jesufe Christ brought to the world is ever to save man and 
make him his brother's keeper in place of killer, it becomes 
his imperativ duty to act as did the man in building the type- 
machine. Every wrong must be sought after, found and dis- 
carded, and replaced with the right, or that end can never 
be attained. The diagram makes this all clear. "He that is 
not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with in** 
scattereth abroad," saith the Teacher. And this leaves man in 
full possession of his free moral agency, hence can hold no on« 
but himself responsible for his salvation or destruction. 

The solution of this problem forever removes the greatest 
barrier to moral progress and Christian civilization that exists to- 
day, for it eliminates from the minds of people a personality that 
has never existed on this earth only in imagination — yet has 
been, and still is regarded, as an independent personality, and to 
blame for the world's wickedness — and places the responsi- 
bility on man himself where it belongs. 

Then all the attributes shown in the lower half of the dia- 
gram, are only developed thoughts expressing different ways, 
or modes in which people choose to use their intelligence as 
destroyers, Cain-like, to satisfy their sensual and selfish ends, 
hence leaves nothing in sight but death at the end of the race. 

Then it certainly follows that man can only save himself 
and become his brother's keeper as he brings these destroying 
attributes under the control of his will in obedience to God's 
requirements, and it is in this manner he builds the Christ-like 
character shown by the utpper half of the diagram and thus saves 
himself from being his brother's destroyer, or in Scripture lan- 
guage, works out his own salvation. 

Reader, you are a free moral agent. Your destiny is in 
your own hands, and your final end will be the result of your 
own choosing. The Bible is yours and no man on earth has 
any right to tell you that it means this or that. The new Testa- 
ment is purely the science of life, or of right living, by the Author 
of life, and no one who will follow its teachings to the best of his 
ability as he will understand them by reading, can possibly make 
shipwreck of life, and besides will have a religion worth having 
to take with him over the river. 



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j-'BRARY OF CONGRESS # 



021 226 184 1 



